Criminal Destiny by Gordon Korman

avoid breaking and entering.”
    â€œI admire you for that,” says Malik with a smile. “Tell you what—you sleep on the street. I’m looking forward to a nice warm bed.”
    â€œCome on, Malik. This is somebody’s home. How about respect for other people’s property?”
    â€œHow about respect for DNA?” he shoots back. “The guy I’m cloned from—you think he’d have a problem with breaking into this house? He’d probably steal everything that wasn’t nailed down too. But I’m not going to do that because I’m too nice. You’re welcome.”
    Amber rolls her eyes. “Shut up, Malik. I’m not thrilled about breaking in either. But sometimes you have to balance the bad thing you do for the good result you need. We need to get out of the open where we can be spotted. We need a real night’s sleep. We need to eat something. Everything we need is inside that door.”
    Eli is unconvinced. “I can just imagine the people we’re cloned from using excuses like that to justify what they do.”
    Sometimes it’s easier to picture Eli as an exact genetic copy of a Good Samaritan than a criminal.
    â€œWe’re not them,” I soothe. “We’re us. And we’re just trying to survive. If people see four kids sleeping outside in some park, what do you think they’ll do? Call the cops.”
    Eli nods reluctantly. “Fine. How do we get in?”
    â€œLet’s wait for it to get a little darker,” I advise. “If this place is anything like Serenity, everybody minds everyone else’s business. We’ll wait till nobody can see what we’re doing, and go in from the back.”
    We slip through the gate into the yard, and into a metal tool shed. The floor practically crawls with ants and beetles, and I hear a whimper from Malik. (For a big, tough guy, he’s such a wimp about insects.) I pick up four flashlights. We can’t use the lights of the house because we don’t want the neighbors to know anybody’s in there.
    Once the sun is down, it gets dark pretty fast. It’s time to make our move.
    â€œSo what happens now?” asked Malik. “Heave a rock through the back slider?”
    I don’t even answer him. I’m concentrating on the house, searching for a way in. I notice the upstairs windowsfirst. It must be an artist thing—something about those windows is vaguely unbalanced. The sash sits a tiny bit higher in the one on the left. It’s barely a quarter-inch difference, but to me it’s glaringly obvious.
    The window isn’t open—there’s no gap. But I’m willing to bet—if Serenity kids bet, which, of course, we don’t—that it’s closed but not locked. That’s why it’s slightly higher; there’s no latch forcing it down.
    So if I can get up there . . .
    All at once, I see the path. It’s as clear as if someone marked it in chaser lights: shinny up the drainpipe, sidestep to the roof of the screen porch, and then it should be handhold one, handhold two, handhold three—and you’re in.
    As I’m climbing, I try not to think about where this strange skill set comes from. My dad used to be a rock climber, but of course he’s not really related to me. I’m probably cloned from a cat burglar—and a good one, too, to qualify for the Osiris experiment. (Which is obviously nothing to be proud of. Still, it could be a lot worse. One of the guys is a copy of the Crossword Killer.)
    I was right. The sash raises easily. I shoot the others a triumphant grin. They seem amazed. I’m the opposite. As unsure of myself as I can sometimes be, I had total confidence in the way up and the way in. Go figure.
    Once I crawl inside, it hits me: we are now officially criminals, just like the people who supplied our DNA. True, we’ve broken laws before in the course of our run for freedom. This feels